A New Cage
by DeariesNeverDie
Summary: After she killed Booker, Elizabeth regretted it and felt she deserved punishment. She opened a tear to a world where Columbia never existed and told her story only to be committed to an asylum for delusions. Now she stays there and she doesn't even try to flee this new cage.


_I do not own these characters or the game they're from. I also admit hey may be a twinge OOC. I'm not very good. :I_

 _ **A New Cage**_

"Let's try this again, shall we?"

The young woman looked at the ceiling as the aggravated voice returned to its tedious questioning from the previous week. Her wrists and ankles itched where the leather cuffs were strapped - tight, always too tight - to keep her on the table. She hated this. Why had she opened the tear to this world in the first place? Her hand twitched as she remembered. _Him_. She did this because of what she did to him.

"What is your name?"

Her face contorted with confusion. _What is my name..?_ She asked herself. _Elizabeth Comstock? No, that's not right.. Is it? It was something else. Anna DeWitt? No.. Neither sounds right, but they don't sound entirely wrong. I know I knew it yesterday. ... Or did I?_

"I can't remember." She answered softly, earning a sigh from the doctor. There was a pause and then the rubber piece was in her mouth and a painful shock went through her body. They did this if they didn't like her answers. As though they could force her to give ones they liked by causing her pain. Once the current passed the rubber was removed and it was back to the questioning.

"Your name is Elizabeth Comstock." Another sigh left the doctor after a minute as Elizabeth lay on the table silently. "I'll skip the next one as I'm not in any mood to hear about a made up city in the sky. Now, who was Booker?"

Her eyes widened and her fingers curled, nails biting into her palms as her fingers clenched. _Don't ask me that! Anything but that._ "My father." She whispered.

"You told us you murdered him. Why would you think that?"

Blue eyes closed as they began to sting with tears, a single drop sliding out and back toward her hair. "I told you.. I don't think it, I know I did."

"Then tell us the truth. What happened that day?"

She could feel pain and regret squeezing her heart like a vice. Why couldn't they just take that and leave her be? Why make her relive that moment? But she felt she deserved it. It was her punishment for what she did to Booker.

"We had just killed the man who tortured me and escaped the revolutionaries that were trying to kill us. We were searching for a way to undo what had been done. .. But _he_ was the man, the so-called prophet, just in another version of that world." She remembered everything from that day and _God_ knows she wanted to forget. _'He's Zachary Comstock.' 'He's Booker DeWitt.' 'No. I'm.. both.'_ "I pushed him into the river and held him under until he stopped moving. My own _father_..."

She heard the sound of pen on paper and whispering. Then the doctor was in her vision. The other woman's eyes held no warm as she held up a syringe. "Don't worry, miss. It's time to go back to your room and sleep." She jabbed the needle into Elizabeth's arm and the young woman jerked in response. She could already feel the drugs pulling her of to sleep and she didn't want them to. If she slept, she'd see him.

It wasn't long after that she was unstrapped and carried to her "room" as the doctors and nurses liked to call the small cells they stuck the patients in. Fortunately she didn't have to see the pure white walls or barred windows for very long as the drugs dragged her into unconsciousness. When her eyes opened again, she knew she was dreaming.

She was back in her library. Everything was as she remembered it; the high bookshelves, the mural on the ceiling, even the door that had been her life's ambition to flee through. But then she heard footsteps as someone descended the staircase. She turned even though she knew exactly who it was.

"Elizabeth... Why are you torturing yourself?" Booker asked. His voice was soft and sad, as were his eyes. His arms opened for her - not something she thought the Booker she knew would do - and she lost it. She didn't _deserve_ to seek comfort in his embrace. She didn't _deserve_ to have him hold her. But she ran for him anyway and sobbed against his chest as he held her tight.

"I'm so sorry for what I did to you. I didn't _want_ to!" She wailed, tears streaming down her face as she looked up at him. "After I realized what I'd done, I searched for a world where I hadn't done it. But there wasn't a _single one_ , Booker! I want to undo what I've done but -"

He put a finger to her lips and shushed her. " _Elizabeth._ You did what had to be done. If you hadn't, Comstock would've been created. It was the only way." She shook her head desperately but found herself incapable of forming words, so he continued. "I know you're hurting. Until what Comstock tried to do with that siphon in your spine, you were never the kind to take a life lightly. And I guess having to kill your own father so he wouldn't turn evil didn't help. But it had to be done. I mean, what else _could_ you have done?"

She wanted to say " _Anything!_ Anything but what I did!" but her lips wouldn't move. The room around her faded as did he. She could feel him lean close and kiss her forehead... And then her eyes snapped open to take in a pure white ceiling that was lit by the sun. It seemed she had been out longer than she would have guessed. The woman stood shakily and looked at her barred window. Another day in this cage full of shrieking birds. But it was her cage and this time..

She'd chosen it herself.


End file.
